I am not an elder in the church. If asked, I would refuse. Because I am not qualified. And because the leadership of the church matters. Without true leadership, holding onto the truth of the gospel, we get dragged into controversies that matter not. False leaders are credulous: they pray about superstitions and do not confront true evil.

‘On Saturday night in a downtown Paris chapel, hundreds of people, many of them prostrated on the ground, sang and prayed for the climate negotiators and mostly for the world.’ ”

But praying for victims of a terror attack is wrong somehow. Riiiight.

So what are the qualifications for an elder?

• The husband of one wife
• Children are believers and not open to charges of debauchery
• Above reproach
• Not arrogant or quick tempered>
• Not violent
• Not a drunkard or greedy for gain
• Is hospitable
• Loves good
• Self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined

I am divorced. My ex fell into that heresy of feminism that we are equal: I was taught the same and I did not understand otherwise until it was too late and I had become a chump, a doormat. For it is elders who achieve this. The drunk is in the pew, vowing that today he will not hit the sauce, and the front row forward is vowing that next game he won’t throw a punch, while recovering from the blows that hit him on Saturday.

The only qualification I would have would be my children standing strong in the faith and the truth and for Christ. I pray that it will happen.

I am not qualified to be an elder.

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;

To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

(Titus 1 ESV)

There is a lot of empty talk. A lot of errors. The one I alluded to was the idea among the modern church that all men must be elders, and holy, upright, self-controlled and if that is not the case they are not qualified to be husbands. If not an elder, divorced: indeed if an elder and one fault, a woman has a duty to divorce. This is a foul error. It destroys relationships, scars children, and means we have a generation of young men who prefer video games to dating because the costs of dating are too high.

The trouble is that if we do not cling to the truth and to the gospel: if we do not rebuke those who are in error… error spreads. We had a lovely sister, who believes what she is told, pray that we would stop Global Warming… when I have been wearing winter clothes in what should be summer (today is the first hot day — four days before Christmas). Because our eldership is corrupt.

We have let in those who are offended, who speak nonsense, who are unqualified (and, yes, that includes women: women have a deep and profound ministry of counseling and supporting each other so they love their husbands and children. It is not instinctual. it has to be taught).

We need to select the upright. The humble. Those who do not want the job. And by the faith of their children and the ongoing state of their marriage you can see them.